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Kosmider: While coaches can bolt with the changing wind, college players aren't as fortunate

The immediate aftermath of a loss to Harvard in the first round of the NCAA Tournament last week was a heartbreaking time for New Mexico fans who thought this might be the year their team made a run to the Final Four.

But after the pain subsided, reasons for hope surfaced. Just about everyone from a 29-6 team was coming back and, one day after the stunning upset, coach Steve Alford agreed in principle to a 10-year extension that would keep in him Albuquerque for the foreseeable future.

It turns out the foreseeable future was 11 days.

Alford, the former floor general under Bob Knight at Indiana, agreed on Saturday to become the next head coach at UCLA, signing a reported seven-year deal for $2.5 million per season.

Just 11 days earlier, Alford said this: “There is no other place I would rather coach than at UNM.”

I guess the caveat we were all supposed to assume was, “Unless someone comes along and offers one of the nation’s premier jobs.”

“Steve Alford just signed a 10-year, $20 Million extension at New Mexico.” Jay Bilas, the well-know college basketball analyst, tweeted Saturday. “Now, he’s head coach at UCLA. Damn, time flies.”

Doesn’t it?

Before we delve further, let’s make it clear this isn’t an assault on Steve Alford. Having a chance to coach a program that has won more national championships (11) than any other is an opportunity many coaches who worked to reach this stage would jump at.

This is merely the latest example of a system gone awry.

My hope is that we just start addressing college athletics for what they are: A collective bottom-line, big-money business that champions “student-athlete welfare” in front of cameras and microphones, while doing whatever it takes behind closed doors to chase the last almighty dollar.

While the system enabled Alford to leave New Mexico less than two weeks after pledging his long-term services to the school, its athletes — you know, the ones actually playing the sports — aren’t typically afforded such latitude.

Your coach left? The one you committed to? The one you pledged to spend more time with than members of your own family? OK, you can leave, too, and play somewhere else. You just have to sit out a season.

The reality is, more recruits will tell you they choose their college program based on who is coaching it than for any other reason. It makes sense. That is the person entrusted to help them grow as players and, you would hope, as people. That coach is the person you see day in, day out, the one with whom you place your faith and trust.

But that person can bolt one day after telling all his players he’ll be around at the school as long as they are.

Sure, it’s not as if players are thrown out on the street. In the six years I’ve covered college sports, I’ve come across no shortage of good people — and there are certainly plenty at Texas Tech — who go to great lengths to make the experience of being a college athlete the best one it can be for young men and women, no matter how trying the situation.

(Come to think of it, few staffs have been put to the test in that regard more in recent years than Tech’s.)

But that doesn’t change the fact that while the NCAA and its institutions are making millions on sponsorship, television and merchandising deals, the athletes aren’t compensated beyond a free education and are strictly constrained by a mind-numbingly long list of rules that often seem arbitrary at best.

As Nathan Fenno of the Washington Post wrote earlier this week, players are forbidden by NCAA rules “from receiving more than one shirt from a university for team travel or similar functions. The shirt must have a school logo with a manufacturer’s logo no larger than 2 1/4 inches.”

Time to bust out the measuring stick.

As Texas Tech’s ongoing search for a new basketball coach entered its third week, leaving the program’s players to ponder their futures, point guard Josh Gray took to social media to declare that he wanted Chris Walker to remain his head coach. Walker was, after all, the coach most involved in his recruitment and the one for whom he played — and with whom he developed a strong relationship — during his freshman season.

I heard several people shortly after Gray authored those sentiments say or write on Twitter that he should keep his mouth shut and let the school handle it.

Really? The kid is the one playing the game, but he shouldn’t be allowed to voice an opinion about who coaches him while he does?

Granted, players don’t understand everything that goes into searching for the right coach for a university. It is hard for anyone to grasp all the moving parts that go into making a decision with far-reaching implications.

But a player shouldn’t be chastised for voicing an opinion about something that could affect his future in a profound way. Especially when that player often isn’t granted full freedom to counter with the move he or she believes is best — like transferring to a different school and playing immediately once a coach leaves or is fired.

A coach can give his pledge to a team, then hit the road 11 days later for a better job.

The players who helped him reach that plateau? It’s going to take them a little longer to improve their own situations.